A Couple Of Things To Make You Laugh

The Other Quartet

One of my colleagues from the station next door liked my previous post so much, that he asked me to run up a little something about his own colleagues,

So here goes.Mr Moody.Mr Happy.

Mrs God Worthy.

Mr Gadget.

The Dirty Half Dozen

Whilst chatting with my colleague about the other Supervisors at my station, I decided to think who we all looked like.

So here are the Supervisor lookalikes for my station.

Yours Truly.

The Bearded One.

The Lady Killer.

The Ladyboy Killer.

Colonel Clink.
And finally The Hamster.

Apart from people who already know, can you guess which station we all work at ???

A Nice Couple Of VIP's

I received a call from the station next door telling me I had a VIP (Visually Impaired Person) on the next train, the VIP is on the 3rd car from the rear.

Off I trot to the eastbound platform and eagerly await my VIP, the train pulls into the platform, and no VIP, as I look along the train I spot the VIP getting off the 5th car from the rear, which is the 4th from the front. Great to be given the correct information i always say.

As I escort the VIP upstairs, he starts asking question, "where's the nearest cafe and is it open?"
Unfortunately our station cafe closes around 2ish so no.

"Is there anywhere on the station I can wait to meet a friend?"
"There's the ticket hall area with plenty of room"
"Does it have any seats?"
"Sorry but no it doesn't"
"How far is the nearest pub?"
"It's just across the road"
"Would you mind taking me there?"

As I have another Supervisor on duty at this time of day it's not a problem, so there I was escorting a VIP over to the local pub, and just as I'm walking out through the gate line, in walks another VIP which my colleague deals with, his VIP wants to go to Mile End and after waiting about 12 minutes for the train, he can finally return to his own work.

All in all I think I got the better deal.

If It's Not Ducks

Now squirrels are causing disrupton, not to the Underground but elsewhere.

My sympathy go out to the squirrels family.

Computer Training

As I arrived at work today, I had the joy of witnessing two of my colleagues working on the PC, Colonel Clink was trying to show The Hamster how to set his favorites, how to add his contacts on Outlook and how to fill in some of the daily paperwork.

For some reason the term "blind leading the blind" comes to mind.

The Long Walk Home

Ok only 15 minutes from the station and partly uphill, but walking home tonight I listened to four tunes on my mp3 player and as i walked i realized that certain music makes me walk in different ways.

AC/DC's Ride and Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here had my walking slowly singing along to myself, then Korn's Twisted Transistor had me walking in a strong purposeful distance eating gait until The Prodigy's Hot Ride had me walking up the road, with a head bobbing 80's style dance.

Another Boring Night Over

Todays shift was just as bad if not worse then last night, the only excitement on the line was a person under a train at Eastcote.

When I spoke to my manager about it later in the evening ( just to get the details) I found out that the person was removed alive, however the person was located under the 7th car of an eight car train.

Lots of internal damage, head and limb injuries.

Why do people do it, what makes a person want to throw themselves under an underground train, two thirds of the people who do it LIVE.

If you want to try suicide try a high speed national rail train, you might end up scattered over 150 meters of track, but you will be DEAD, your family wont recognise you, but you will be DEAD, you will be buried in a small coffin (as they just put your body parts into plastic sacks), but you will be DEAD, the train crew will have time off work paid, but you will be DEAD, your family will go through the torment of your suicde, but you wont worry as you will be DEAD.

So in short, don't try it with one of our trains, go out in style, with a big splat.

I think this just turned into an anti-one under post

Boring

Tonight at work, bugger all happened, no ducks, no real problems, no nothing.

My manager was down for a while as they had the Taste for London in Regents Park and for some strange reason my early turn colleague arranged to have extra staff attend for no reason what so ever.

At one stage there were four Revenue Inspectors, two Customer Service Assistants, one DSM and myself in the ticket hall and three customers.

Allegedly we were supposed to have an influx of customers in the range of 2500, so basically and evening peak, but due to the weather, it went off like a damp squib.

What A Duck Up

You wont believe this and no I'm not making it up.

The Circle was suspended in both directions because of a DUCK (yes you did read that right) on the track in the High Street Kensington area.

Services resumed after the duck waddled back onto the platform and went to a place of safety.

Some Good From Bad

After my wallet was nicked, I was well and truly in the doldrums, however I did just get a spot of silver lining come my way.

I went to get my duplicate season ticket from Wellingborough to London St Pancras, in all it took the booking clerk over 20 minutes to produce the duplicate and I found myself £10 out of pocket.

As I boarded the train to work I looked at my season ticket and thought that the clerk had issued me with a ticket that expires today, then I clocked the date properly.

My old season ticket expires in September 2007 and would cost me over £1000 to renew, on checking my new ticket, it expires on 21st June 2008.

That means I wont have to renew this year and I wont need to take a company loan which sees over £100 a month leaving my wages.

About Last Night

That has got to be one of the worst nights sleep I have had in years, I went to bed around 1:30 and my head just kept ticking over and over.

When I finally fell asleep I was awake again within and hour, three times i woke before 5am and after that I fell into a doze around two hours later and still didn't sleep well.

I feel stressed, anxious, fretful and dead tired and to think I have yet to go to work.

I'm Completely Fucked Off

Tonight some bastard stole my wallet.

Unlike an average persons wallet, my wallet contained my staff pass worth two annual season tickets from central London to Amersham, my own annual national rail ticket worth £1044, my childrens privilege tickets, my credit, debit and cashpoint cards the most upsetting were four photos of my kids which I can't replace.

It was the photos which almost had me in tears, the rest I can replace, the photos I can't.

Back To Work

So tonight I'm back to a late turn shift and it's the first of eight shifts.

For some reason I'm getting to dislike this shift more and more each time I do them, it might have something to do with leaving home at 12:45 and getting home at 00:45 and being in London for that many hours.

But life goes on.

First Class Information

As I sat waiting for my first train to arrive, I waited and waited and waited some more. I looked at the trackernet system to check where the train was and saw it sitting at Baker Street with a nice red light in front of it.

As I watched the train, nothing happened, no red light going to green, nothing.

Time slowly passed and still nothing.

I rang LIA and asked if there was a problem and the nice man in his cosy office said "Oh yeah we have a signal failure at Baker Street"

I thought that's great why not do your job and pass on the information to the frigging stations so we don't get it in the neck from the customers waiting for the first bloody train.

Tedium Day 4

So my last day of ATOR started and finished very quickly, lots of different scenarios, first aid traing and managing people once more.

All of us passed the final assesments and life carries on as normal.

So that's it I keep my licenses for another year.

The End

Tedium Day 3

I struggled through most of today as I have been chatting with my better half most nights until 3am, my own fault for feeling tired.

Todays core training was all to do with a person under a train, a person taken ill on a train, a wrong direction move and I can't remember the forth, also we had a little refresher in first aid train and I found out that all new Supervisors who are going through training, this will involve a weeks first aid training, also all outstanding SS, if they fancy getting trained in first aid, they will be pushed to the head of the training list.

This afternoon saw once again, training in man management. So that was interesting.
Tomorrow is my last training day and then I'm onto nights from Saturday.

At least I get to see my better half tomorrow after work.

Camden Town Incident

As you might know there was a serious incident at Camden Town on Sunday.

An Edgware Train took the wrong signal, and instead of going into platform 1 at Camden (Edgware branch) it went into platform 2 (High Barnet branch), so on contacting the Line Controller it was decided to do a stock and crew exchange, this means that the crews from the train in platform 3 and platform 1 exchange places and continue on to there correct destinations.

The problem was that the T/O who went from platform 1 to platform 3 turned right instead of left when walking on to the High Barnet branch platform, the T/O proceeded to the wrong end of the train, opened up and left the station going toward Mornington Crescent & Euston, the T/O only stopped when they realised they were approaching another trian.

Unfortunately the T/O has been "Stood Down" (suspended) and will almost certainly loose there job. The other T/O will have no consequence.

Another incident that happened a few years ago, was a northbound Golders Green train leaving Chalk Farm towards Belsize Park, the driver passed out and the train promptly rolled backwards, back through Chalk Farm platform on its way to Camden Town again, luckily this was the last train so no other trains were involved.

Tedium Day 2 And A Bit Of Gossip

Well today went quicker as we got down to some desk top exercises, no not lifting them up and down, but working out scenarios all to do with situations that occur daily about the combine.

Scenario A: How to apply the HOT procedure when dealing with lost property.

Scenario B: How to provide Assisted Dispatch when dealing with an OP monitor fault (the old second right procedure with a new name).

Scenario C: How to Scotch and Clip a set of points when a signal is remaining at danger.

Scenario D: Staff working in a twin track tunnel with a place of safety (old rule AC108 applies).

Even though we go through each scenario before we still down the the test, as soon as the papers are in front of you, your mind goes blank.

The latter half of the day was Managing Challenging Behaviour or in other words how to diffuse a hostile situation with out getting yourself a punch from an irate customer.

So second day down and second day passed.

Now for the gossip:
I bumped into an old CSA I used to work with on my group and found out that the CSA is now a Train Operator.
Unfortunately the Train Op had made a colossal cock up a few weeks ago, the Train Op had pulled into a platform at a station but after applying a Westinghouse braking, they had drifted slightly past the platform monitors, and after applying the correct procedures, my friend the Train Op opened the doors on the wrong side of the train so all the doors on the track side were wide open, luckily no one fell out or was hurt.
My friend had a disciplinary hearing today, they started the day as a Train Op and finished the day as a CSA.

New Olympics Logo

This says it all really.

Day 1 Of Tedium

So today I started my four days of ATOR, was I bored, of course I was, the only good thing about today was going home at 14:30.

The induction to the course went fairly quickly, then it was on to the new style Rule Book, with a nice little presentation video, explaining how to read it and what the difference was between the Rule Book and the Old Reference Manual, also that the Rule Books are missing two vital parts, 4 & 9 which is being sorted out as we wait.

Also we are being told to use the phonetic alphabet, so that's:
A: Alpha
B: Bravo
C: Charlie
D: Delta
E: Echo
F: Foxtrot
G: Golf
H: Hotel
I: India
J: Juliet
K: Kilo
L: Lima
M: Mike
N: November
O: Oscar
P: Papa
Q: Quebec
R: Romeo
S: Sierra
T: Tango
U: Uniform
V: Victor
W: Whiskey
X: X-Ray
Y: Yankee
Z: Zulu

Or if you prefer the Dr Alan Statham version like I do.



This afternoon after break we popped down to Liverpool Street and carried out our track walk, the instructor called me a flash git because i have long legs and stepped easily over the tracks in three steps instead of the usual six step shuffle.

Once that was finished it was off to chat to a mate and arrived home around 19:15

That's It

My final day off.

Tomorrow it's back to the rat race and back to training.

Yesterday though I spent a pleasant day with my kids at my sons First Communion. I even spent around six hours in the company of my ex-wife and because things went smoothly, I think my son got a bit confused about things and at the end of the day as I left to come home, he broke down crying. This is the first time in ages any of my kids have cried like this.

I started thinking about all the my kids have gone through since I split up with my ex and how much shit they have had to endure.
It's been over three and a half years since I split up with my ex-wife and after spending such a good day with them yesterday I felt ashamed for the anguish I have caused my kids.

Why can't adults sometimes see these things that they do to there own kids.

Week Two Of Two

So my second week is coming to an end, I had a lovely evening out on the Saturday night, I met up with some of the Myspace friends from my own page, a good and alcoholic night followed.

Sunday I spent the day with my better half and saw her to London so she could get home to her own place.

Monday and Tuesday I just felt very down in the dumps, it's the only reason I hate about living alone, I've had company of my kids and my better half for over a week, so when you go back to an empty house you can really feel alone in life.

Wednesday I spent most of the morning getting nervous as I went top meet the better half's kids for the first time, and luckily I think I made a good impression, however the only problem I did come across was that I left my house keys in my other bag so I would have to leave early on the Thursday to get the spare keys from the letting agents.

Thursday arrived and as my better half's eldest has been decorating the living room, I offered to paint the ceiling as my better half and her eldest are only around 5` 5" tall and me being 6` plus makes it easy for me to paint it instead, however as time ran long into the afternoon i spent another night with my better half.

Friday saw me on my way back home and after a bit of a chill I ended up asleep on the sofa and suffering a serious headache and migraine.

So today is my final day of leave and I would normally be back at work to a Sunday, this time though I'm lucky as I have two rest days before I'm back to work as I have my sons first communion, so off to Southend once more and then I'm on ATOR (nice) until Friday before restarting my set of nights from Saturday.

WOW

That's all I can say really.

As my better half walked down my stairs tonight I thought she looks gorgeous.

One Week Down, One More To Go

This week I've been on annual leave, and so far it's been pretty good, with lots to do.

Saturday, I went and picked my kids up for the week as they have half term off school, so a nice trip home from Southend, and straight around the chip shop for some well earned dinner. I only had two of the three as the eldest is in a play all week, so that was the only disappointment.

Sunday was spent over at a friends in Northampton at a BBQ, and although the weather was pretty wet, ok it bucketed down all day, the afternoon and evening went really well, i even met up with an ex LUL SAMF who I used to work with.

Monday was a bit worrying as my kids met my better half for the first time, so at first it was every one on tenter hooks until we all settled.
I also found out my better half is a bit of a sneaky woman, as she decided to get an earlier train without telling me and arrived early, see told you it was sneaky.

Tuesday we all did the family thing, SHOPPING, and unfortunately the dinner I made that night didn't really sit well with the lot of us, and by Wednesday we all had a bit of a dodgy belly.

Wednesday it was off to London for me and off home for the better half. I popped around to mums and spent a couple of days being pampered and my kids being let loose to create merry hell at there nans.

Thursday and the stomach aches continued and as my daughter didn't eat dinner she was sent from the kitchen from nan only for me to end up having a go at my mum.

Friday saw me traveling with my kids back to Southend and then home again and best of all meeting up with the better half once more.

So now it's Saturday and after a long week, I'm off out tonight with the better half to meet up with a few fellow MySpacers from Northants. Hopefully it all goes well and that my second week is as good as my first.

I also see the weather is here to stay for a few days too.